Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/444

 404 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. Italy, in the tombs of Latium, Etruria and Praeneste. 1 The Phoenicians were such skilful merchants that they would never neglect an article like this, with a wide and sure market. It is therefore probable that in the western Mediterranean the Car- thaginians were the agents through whom it was bought from northern tribes and distributed over the western coasts. It is found in considerable quantities in the cemetery of Tharros, 2 and the question is to know whether it was worked in the island or imported ready for use from Etruria and Latium. The Phoenician origin of some ostrich eggs found at Vulci in Etruria cannot be denied. They were found in the tomb of Polledrara and are six in number ; once, no doubt, they were arranged on a metal foot,f which was so disposed as to hide certain marks, directions no doubt to the mounter, which are now exposed. I noted, for instance, A and A, upon two separate eggs. Four of these eggs are decorated with figures whose contours are traced with the point and then filled in with colour or gold leaf, all signs of which have now disappeared. The tones of the polished surface and the part covered with colour or gold show a marked difference, however, which is approximately shown in our woodcuts. Each egg is entirely surrounded by a wide band of ornament engraved with the figures of men and animals ; above and below this band, but only for a part of its length, runs a border made up of a kind of fringe with beads and fillets (Figs. 348-351). A fifth egg is decorated in a somewhat different way (Fig. 352). The figures upon it are merely painted with a brush. A black line marks the contours ; the spaces within are covered with spots of red paint, and the whole composition is shut in within two bands of red and green. 4 The same tints have been used to 1 See GARRUCCI (Archczologia, vol. xli. pp. 197 and 204). 2 SPANO, Bulltttino archeologico Sardo, 1859, pp. 175, 176. Upon the trade routes of amber see MULLENHOFF, Deutsche Allerthumskunde, i. pp. 211 et seq. HELBIG, Osservazioni sul commercio dell' ambra, in the Proceedings of the Academy of the Lincei, 1877, p. 7. Helbig calls our attention to the fact thai amber was found in nearly every tomb in Latium and Etruria in which objects of Phoenician manufacture were encountered (p. 13). 3 PLINY was acquainted with these ways of using the egg of the ostrich (N. H. x. i); the fashion subsisted in his time. Even now, indeed, in the East, these shells may be seen hanging from the roofs of the mosques, adorned with many-coloured cords and tassels. 4 In our woodcut the darker tone represents red, the lighter green.